Episode Fourteen | Aberdeenshire Folk Tales

We open wi lang-time freen o the programme an kenspeckle figure in the Scots warld Donald Smith, heid o TRACS. Donald is weel-kent as a Tam o Shanter performer o the first-watter. In this episode he tells us aa aboot the wakrshops he wis rinnin tae help fowk improve their ain performances o Burns’ langest an ane o his maist popular warks. It isnae aathegither sae easy. Lug in tae Donald’s interview wi Frieda fir mair…

Scots Radio is a programme fir the hail o Scotland, but its beatin hert is in Scotland’s North-East. This airt is thrang wi stories an legends o ghaists, bogles an ither hings that gae bump in the nicht. Sae o course whan twa o Scotland’s best storytellers, Sheena Blackhall an Grace Banks pit thegither a hail when o these stories intae a beuk, Scots Radio wis on the scene tae finn oot mair. Scottish Urban Myths and Ancient Legends

Blackhall an Banks were aff the back o the success o their North-East collection Aberdeenshire Folk Tales whan they were speirt bi a publishers tae mak just sic a collection fir the hail o Scotland. Grace makkit the fine point in her interview that sae mony collections o folk tales could be fae ony place on earth, sic is the wye stories are spried aawye orally. “Sae we decidit that if we’re daein ane fir Scotland, it needs tae be really Scottish” Grace telt us.

Sheena Blackhall, tae her stammagaster, discovert on her researches that an academic has shawn that Greyfriars Bobby, thon cheerful wee dug perched abuin Candlemaker Row, is nocht but a makey-uppey story fir tae bring in the tourists.

But she also funn mony an eldritch tale. Fir exaimple there’s a brig in Scotland “Far dogs commit suicide. They aa loup aff. They gie it the ‘goodbye cruel world’ an aff they go.”